starting emacs remote doesn't load .emacs

starting emacs remote doesn't load .emacs

[Stefan Horomnea]

Hello,

I am running emacs21 on FreeBSD. If I start emacs directly from the 
machine, it loads and has effect the ~/.emacs file.
If i log on the machine remotly via ssh (from another machine via xterm) 
then the emacs doesn't find the same ~/.emacs file. So everything I 
write in my .emacs file on the remote machine is useless. Why it can't 
find it ? How can I debug this ?

Thanks,
Stefan

Re: starting emacs remote doesn't load .emacs

[Stefan Horomnea]

Hello,

Ok, I got it :)

I logged as bob user and then su to root. Emacs wasn't looking for 
/root/.emacs but for /home/bob/.emacs
i just linked: ln -s /root/.emacs /home/bob/.emacs

That thing it does according to the manual: 
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Find-Init.html#Find-Init



Stefan Horomnea wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am running emacs21 on FreeBSD. If I start emacs directly from the 
> machine, it loads and has effect the ~/.emacs file.
> If i log on the machine remotly via ssh (from another machine via 
> xterm) then the emacs doesn't find the same ~/.emacs file. So 
> everything I write in my .emacs file on the remote machine is useless. 
> Why it can't find it ? How can I debug this ?
>
> Thanks,
> Stefan
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> help-gnu-emacs mailing list
> help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs
>

Re: starting emacs remote doesn't load .emacs

[Stefan Monnier]

> I logged as bob user and then su to root.

I strongly recommend you stay away from "su root" and use "su - root" (or
just "su -") instead.  That will properly reset your environment and thus
avoid problems such as root reading/overwriting your .emacs file.


        Stefan

Re: starting emacs remote doesn't load .emacs

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 10.10.2007 um 14:09 schrieb Stefan Horomnea:

>
> I logged as bob user and then su to root. Emacs wasn't looking for / 
> root/.emacs but for /home/bob/.emacs
> i just linked: ln -s /root/.emacs /home/bob/.emacs

You could also use: emacs -u bob.

--
Greetings

   Pete

People say that  if you play Microsoft CD's  backwards, you hear  
satanic things,  but that's  nothing, because  if you  play them   
forwards, they install Windows.

Re: starting emacs remote doesn't load .emacs

[Tim X]

Stefan Horomnea <stefan@softexperience.ro> writes:

> Hello,
>
> Ok, I got it :)
>
> I logged as bob user and then su to root. Emacs wasn't looking for
> /root/.emacs but for /home/bob/.emacs
> i just linked: ln -s /root/.emacs /home/bob/.emacs
>

this is a bad slution on many levels. 

1. Read the man page on su and look at the difference between su and su - 
   If you want things to be relative to the root user environment, you need
   the -
2. It is a bad idea to run any program as root unless you absolutely have
   to. there are many reasons for this, mainly relating to security and not
   'shooting yourself in the foot'. If you think you have to run as root
   all the time, then there is something you have misunderstood. Let us
   know why you feel you need to run as root all the time and we can
   probably explain things so that you won't need to. There are rare
   occasions where it does make sense to run emacs as root, but these are
   rare and without meaning to sound rude, given your unawareness of how su
   and shell environments interact, I suspect you don't fall into one of
   those rare situations.
3. If you are running emacs 22, you iwll have tramp installed. tramp will
   allow you to easily edit files owned by root or execute commands as
   root. Use this rather than running emacs as root. 



-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: starting emacs remote doesn't load .emacs

[Joel J. Adamson]

Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null> writes:

> Stefan Horomnea <stefan@softexperience.ro> writes:

> 3. If you are running emacs 22, you iwll have tramp installed. tramp will
>    allow you to easily edit files owned by root or execute commands as
>    root. Use this rather than running emacs as root. 

To open a file, use /su::<filename>

To use dired in root mode /su::/directory

Then get out of root mode as soon as possible (we're telling you this
because we've made mistakes ourselves --- well, at least I have).

Joel

-- 
Joel J. Adamson
Biostatistician
Pediatric Psychopharmacology Research Unit
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA  02114
(617) 643-1432
(303) 880-3109

Re: starting emacs remote doesn't load .emacs

[Tim X]

jadamson@partners.org (Joel J. Adamson) writes:

> Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null> writes:
>
>> Stefan Horomnea <stefan@softexperience.ro> writes:
>
>> 3. If you are running emacs 22, you iwll have tramp installed. tramp will
>>    allow you to easily edit files owned by root or execute commands as
>>    root. Use this rather than running emacs as root. 
>
> To open a file, use /su::<filename>
>
> To use dired in root mode /su::/directory
>
> Then get out of root mode as soon as possible (we're telling you this
> because we've made mistakes ourselves --- well, at least I have).
>

Hehehe. Night before end of year meeting with my supervisor. Noticed a
package I'd installed that I no longer wanted. Cd to the root of the
package dir and entered rm -rf *. Sitting there, quite tired and not paying
careful attention. Noticed lines coming up about not being able to delete
from a read only device. thinking, thats strange. why would I see those
messages?

then it hit me. I was still logged in as root. The cd had left me at the /
dir, so rm -rf * was deleteing my whole file system. The messages were a
result of trying to delete files from my cdrom.

My partner gets very worried as I walk into the lounge room, sit down and
just laugh in a disturbing manic way.

Worst part, I already knew it was a bad idea to run as root when not
necessary. However, I thought I knew what I was doing and would be careful
enough - after all, I had been working as a sys admin for a number of years
and was pretty experienced. 

Two lessons learnt - never run as root unless you have to and be careful of
the over confidence and arrogance that can come with experience! 

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au